Mickys blogalog

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 8:49 pm

Caffiend wrote:I think I'd be fine on some of the basic stuff if I had someone looking over my shoulder

Get yourself along to a show this summer, and I'm sure something can be arranged! I'm willing to lend a hand if it's something I'm familiar with, and I know others are too.

MULLEY · Post by **MULLEY** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:53 pm

5 years ago all i could do was top up the oil, screen wash & coolant, now i can do quite a few things, mainly learnt from others on the forum by either watching how they did it or doing it with someone who knows what they are doing giving you some hints & tips on what to do.

Confidence plays a big part, once you've done something once, the 2nd time round you'll feel more confident at doing it & it should go smoother & quicker. Sometimes going in at the deep end is the only way to learn.

It also helps if you have the right tools etc...i just gradually bought things over a few months & haven't looked back. Ok, i can't change clutches & engine out jobs, but perhaps one day.

Forget about the satisfaction of having done the work yourself, but add up the cost savings alone & it'll easily pay for shelling out on your tools etc.. after just a couple of jobs that a garage would charge you for doing, & i'm not even talking about major work either.

Mickey taker · Post by **Mickey taker** » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:57 am

can't remember if I have ever posted my wierd Haynes manual story before on here so here go's.

I bought my first BX ( a beautiful 19TRS) in the February of 1996 and decided I needed a Haynes manual to help me with servicing etc.

Duly bought a nice shiny new one and, as I always do, made notes in it regarding what servicing I had done.

So when you open the book the first page showed

E404DRD (for that was its reg)
30/04/96
engine oil , filter , drain plug
air filter
sparg plugs
front pads
distributor cap
rotor arm
redex
rear pads

I sold the BX in the August of 1997 and bought my CX familile ( 4 kids and a big dog to transport ) from a guy in Essex ( great Dunmow iirc)

I traded in the BX and left the manual in the boot.

Anyway jump forward to 2004,
I had moved to Milton Keynes and decided to do a bit of buying, using the car for a bit and then selling on.

amongst the astras and golfs I used to buy as bread and butter cars, I found a nice white BX 8 valve GTi.

so yes, I needed a manual for it, scanned the local friday ads and one was for sale about 5 minutes from where I live, phoned the guy, went and bought it,

opened the front page and

yes youv'e guessed it

E404DRD
30/04/96
engine oil , filter , drain plug
air filter
sparg plugs
front pads
distributor cap
rotor arm
redex
rear pads

so seven years later and 80 miles from where I sold the car
I bought my own manual back .

Caffiend · Post by **Caffiend** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:54 am

MULLEY wrote:Forget about the satisfaction of having done the work yourself, but add up the cost savings alone & it'll easily pay for shelling out on your tools etc.. after just a couple of jobs that a garage would charge you for doing, & i'm not even talking about major work either.

Absolutely! That's partly why I signed up to the IMI training last Sept as well. Coming towards the end of the first year now, but although it's been more in depth than I expected (good) it's also been more theoretical (not so good - changing head gaskets and clutches on engine rigs is all very well, but it would be nice to be doing more practical stuff on 'whole' cars). I'll be getting my hands dirtier and possibly some actual real live oil stains on my overalls in Year 2.

Tutor is excellent, years of army/AA experience, really knows his stuff and has said that we're ahead on the syllabus so there may be the opportunity to get our own cars into the college workshop and work on them during the last few weeks of the course. Mine is going in there tonight, there's a couple of more mechanically experienced fellow students who are dying to have a closer look at teh funneh hydraulics on a BX! Will get it up on a ramp so I can look at the underneath properly as well.

If anyone is breaking a car reasonably locally and wants a hand taking it apart, the taking it apart thing I'm quite happy with, my nerves are more related to putting things back together properly/safely - and the practice in remembering which way to turn the spanner depending on which hand I happen to be holding it in will do me good.

I have a very basic toolkit (screwdrivers, spanner and socket sets), need to invest in trolley jack and axle stands next I think. And a longer wheel brace, the guys on my course mock me mercilessly for sometimes not having the physical strength to get the bloody wheel nuts off on the wrecks we play with there ("STFU and gimme that airgun"

)

I shall be at the 'X' rally in April and the ICCR and will take shameless advantage of anyone who's got the patience to supervise a slow apprentice or if assistance is needed and unskilled will do, count me in! Thanks.

Mick - that's spooky ...

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:04 am

Maybe its time to buy a lottery ticket Mick?

Caffiend wrote:sometimes not having the physical strength to get the bloody wheel nuts off

A length of hefty steel tube is very handy to keep in the boot to slide over a wheelbrace or breaker bar (also useful if someone cuts you up...). Try to get a suitable right angled wheelbrace from a scrapyard if all you have is the standard BX one.
Or alternatively a torque multiplying wrench - I got one as a present last year and it's very handy if you're working in a confined space where you can't get the leverage. It give 4 times the torque you put in but obviously only a quarter of the movement.

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:14 am

Mickey taker wrote:so yes, I needed a manual for it, scanned the local friday ads and one was for sale about 5 minutes from where I live, phoned the guy, went and bought it,

opened the front page and

yes youv'e guessed it

E404DRD
30/04/96
engine oil , filter , drain plug
air filter
sparg plugs
front pads
distributor cap
rotor arm
redex
rear pads

so seven years later and 80 miles from where I sold the car
I bought my own manual back .

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:41 am

mat_fenwick wrote:Maybe its time to buy a lottery ticket Mick?

Caffiend wrote:sometimes not having the physical strength to get the bloody wheel nuts off
A length of hefty steel tube is very handy to keep in the boot to slide over a wheelbrace or breaker bar (also useful if someone cuts you up...). Try to get a suitable right angled wheelbrace from a scrapyard if all you have is the standard BX one.
Or alternatively a torque multiplying wrench - I got one as a present last year and it's very handy if you're working in a confined space where you can't get the leverage. It give 4 times the torque you put in but obviously only a quarter of the movement.

or one of these telescopic ones
ebay £4.95 + £2.50 postage
screwfix £9.99, by post or collect from a local screwfix
amazon £12.05 and £9.34

Way2go · Post by **Way2go** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 1:31 pm

The telescopic ones are ideal and these come up in Lidls from time to time @ £4.95 (last appearance a couple of weeks ago) so if your timing is right can also save the £2.50 postage!

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:03 pm

and I've seen them in Asda and Tesco (infrequently)

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 2:11 pm

electrokid wrote:
he thinks it mught be a diaphragm has perished.
Grab a recon kit for the carb - diaphrams should be included in it and both should be easily replaced. Often the anti-stall diaphram will start to leak and then someone fiddles with the mixture to get it running better to cope with the enrichment caused by the leaky diaphram but without realising it. If you remove the vacuum pipe feeding the anti-stall and sniff it - if you find a strong smell of petrol that's the sign of a leaky diaphram.

Any ideas where to get a recon kit ??

FYI, although I wasn't signed up on this forum back in Jan 2009, I think someone may have put a link to a pdf on the Solex carb, which I downloaded in Jan 2009. Maybe I found it elsewhere (BXP ?)

Anyway I have used Grabbit on each page and here it is, much better info than in the Haynes BX BoL .......

saintjamesy89 · Post by **saintjamesy89** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:21 pm

Caffiend wrote: And a longer wheel brace, the guys on my course mock me mercilessly for sometimes not having the physical strength to get the bloody wheel nuts off on the wrecks we play with there ("STFU and gimme that airgun" )

My mk2 astra comes with the world most useless wheel bolt tool, can't be much more than 8" long (tiny, in relative terms

). My method of extraction is to jump up and down on the thing! Although i'm fairly muscular, bending over and pulling (

) 16 times soon gets very tedious when doing all 4 wheels.

Always works, just make sure when it gives you're holding onto something - haven't even managed to bend it yet in 3 years

Post by **mat_fenwick** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:40 pm

saintjamesy89 wrote:can't be much more than 8" long. My method of extraction is to jump up and down on the thing! Although i'm fairly muscular, bending over and pulling 16 times soon gets very tedious...

...just make sure when it gives you're holding onto something - haven't even managed to bend it yet in 3 years

Sorry, what were we talking about again?

BX Meteor · Post by **BX Meteor** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:37 pm

Right, some links about Solex carbs in the forum:
http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1366
http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1478
http://www.bxclub.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3977

They mention a link http://www.rwbsmith.plus.com/citroen2/ which is no longer there, I think that is where I downloaded the pdf from.

Also this website is referred to http://www.carburetters.co.uk/repairkits.php and if you contact them and they still have repair kits for the Solex carb, price and delivery would be interesting to know.

saintjamesy89 · Post by **saintjamesy89** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:43 pm

saintjamesy89 wrote:can't be much more than 8" long. My method of extraction is to jump up and down on the thing! Although i'm fairly muscular, bending over and pulling 16 times soon gets very tedious...

...just make sure when it gives you're holding onto something - haven't even managed to bend it yet in 3 years

mat_fenwick wrote:Sorry, what were we talking about again?

Gosh, what filth! Was supposed to be about wheel nut/bolt tools, i've gon and made myself blush...

Are Solex a French company? These carbs and kits do seem thin on the ground, I remember when I was looking for a 32/34 Solex from an AX GT - it took me ages to find one.

Vanny · Post by **Vanny** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:26 pm

Mickster, just stripped down your old water tap, YOU NEED TO FLUSH YOUR COOLANT!!!!!!

General diagnosis, some tool has filled the engine with rad seal, which has clearly all ended up in the tap (and no doubt the heater core), jamming the ceramic slider.

Obviously this means nothing without pictures, which i'll send at some point.

In other news, refurbing it and shoving it in my car has not helped my leaking tap issue! If only i had a spare. Rollocks.